


Light Shines Through

by Tonko



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: Sometimes, souls from outside the Dotharl tribe are born into it.





	Light Shines Through

Gan winced as the baby stirred. She had slept less than an hour and was fussing again, the sounds of impending crying rising from Gan's back where she'd been all too briefly settled in the sling. 

Rocking gently as she tried to continue her work, Gan hoped futilely that she would calm, kept on with her big needle and sturdy twine to repair this old tent, but the noise did not abate. Gan put the work aside, shifting the sling from her back to before her. 

There was no mess. The baby was disinterested in her breasts. As ever, some unknown thing distressed her and she simply could not be calmed.

A whirling group of youngsters stampeded past, screaming battle cries at each other, the girl at the head of the group getting tackled by the one behind her before it all devolved into a pile of small limbs wrestling. The baby thrashed and complained harder at the noise.

Gan pointed at the children, now spilling apart into a laughing circle of boys and girls, all but the first girl who sat, glaring up at the one who'd defeated her for a few seconds before shrugging. The second girl dashed away and the game began again. "You'll be in among them soon enough, running and wrestling, strongest of all." The baby did not care for her prediction, screwed up her face and made ready to begin a familiar piercing wail. Gan raised her eyes to the sky in a request for patience, and as ever, a name.

She wondered if it wasn't the lack of one that made the child so unhappy. Since the night she'd borne her, Gan herself had felt a strange sense of failure on her own part, for no one who'd looked at the child found any familiar soul in her eyes. Not the udgan, not Sadu Khatun, not anyone. For all that it was called a joyous thing, to welcome someone new into the tribe, the child would have no name until she lived her first year, the time allotted for any possible recognition by tribe members come home from afar.

So for now, Gan rocked her, singing wordlessly to the tune of an old story-song, and started to walk a now familiar path. Past the cookfires, the sheep, out towards the outside of the camp, along the perimeter, tents to one side, sand to the other. 

She'd done this often enough that the sentries had started to comment that the howls kept the beasts at bay.

Heading back in, she accepted more than one look of commiseration as the baby's wailing had eased only slightly in volume. 

Coming past the oasis pond, she saw the visitor she'd heard had arrived earlier in the morning; a huge man who stood in conversation with Mauci and was surrounded by the children who'd been wrestling earlier. Enormously broad, bearded, reddish-skinned, shorn head, and with markings inked onto his face. A rarely seen roegadyn--first and only ever seen, for her--He'd come here some time ago, before the baby was born and before that grand Mol upset at that most extraordinary Naadam… he'd had hair then.

The man had been distracted from Mauci by his small audience, and now rummaged in his bag, retrieving a handful of fruits. 

Bright orange, green leaves. Gan thought she'd seen similar when some other tribe members had returned from Reunion, but she didn't know the name. They were quickly peeled and shared among the visitor's admirers. 

Gan kept a considerate distance, quickening her steps to spare them all the child's restless cries.

There was naught to worry about, rather the opposite it seemed. The visitor looked at them of his own accord, and was transfixed, showing the familiar gaze of a doting elder for a little child, softened even more than when he'd doled out the pieces of fruit to grins and cheers. She slowed her steps involuntarily, shamefully willing to hope for a potential distraction. 

And indeed, as he neared, the baby quieted 

Gan looked down at her in surprise. Her eyes--green, ringed with silver-grey--were wide and watching the visitor, most likely for his striking unfamiliarity.

"Oh, resting your magnificent lungs for a moment, are you, little one?" he said, voice a friendly rumble.

"For a mercy," Gan answered. As the baby squirmed and reached out, Gan adjusted the sling, and the visitor brought his massive hand near enough for her to grab.

"Such strength, child!" he exclaimed when her tiny fingers landed on his hand. As she reached clumsily for the fruit still in his palm, he glanced at Gan queryingly. She nodded. The baby took milk still, would for months to come, but her teeth were coming in--surely yet another source of her near-constant distress--and she was beginning to try food as well. With one great finger he nudged a piece towards her. The baby bounced and grabbed and crammed it at her mouth with enthusiasm, gnawing messily at the end. "Ho ho, you do enjoy that! It is a favourite of mine as well." He delicately cupped his huge fingers over her head, a gentle pat. "Peace, now, small one, hm? For you and your mother."

He regarded her a long moment, then brushed one fingertip against her round, sticky cheek with an expression Gan had, sadly, seen before, a most particular kind of loss and longing that made her own heart ache, before it smoothed away from his craggy features and he gave Gan a smile that crinkled his eyes, and impeccably polite nod. He then returned to where Mauci was leaning, though the children had dispersed, to carry on what looked like reminisces, surely of those days during and after that Naadam. 

Gan continued her circuit by force of habit, in blessed silence for once. She watched closely as the baby inexpertly chewed some small bits off the fruit before gradually slowing and falling asleep, her somewhat squashed prize sliding from her grip.  
Shifting just enough to remove it before the stickiness reached the sling, Gan took an experimental bite. It was not bad. Firm, perhaps too sweet for her own tastes. If the baby enjoyed it, perhaps it was worth requesting from anyone making the journey to Reunion. 

And then, to Gan's astonishment, the baby slept for much of the evening, even through a wet cloth wiping the mess from her face and hands. When she woke, settled in a blanket nest while Gan finally completed the tent repair, Gan could not even be sure when it happened, glancing over as she did every so often to suddenly find wide eyes blinking at her in the lanternlight as the baby silently sucked on her fist. And, miraculously, remained quiet while Gan finished her final stitches and tied off the twine.

Gan reached for her, and two strong hands clung to her fingers. "Shall we take a walk?" This would be a pleasure, for once. Quietly they went, under the stars, the baby sitting upright and looking about. Gan heard a booming laugh from one of the cooking fires as they passed at a distance, and smiled gratefully.

The visitor did not stay long. Gan saw him a few more times the following day, and then he'd gone on his way. She heard second or third-hand that he was on a Doman sort of journey, walking about the lands and praying for the dead. She wondered if he'd thought there were any to pray for at the camp of the Dotharl. All their dead were here, after all.

And some, rare, new souls as well. Gan was seated upon a boulder by the oasis pond, the baby's mouth working at her nipple with soft, sleepy movements. She'd sleep soon at this rate. Gan stroked her fingers through silky black hair. Near a month since the visitor had left and the calm he seemed to have given her remained. 

This evening, and indeed ever since the visitor had come and gone, the baby remained content. Her inconsolable periods had ceased. She fussed to be sure, and assertively, when hungry or to be cleaned, but much of her time awake had turned to wide-eyed observation. Placed upon a blanket or the ground, she did not scream as before, even when Gan moved a pace or more away, but investigated objects around her with cautious and clumsy curiosity, new teeth working at cloth toys, fat fingers patting and grabbing at the grass.

"He doesn't follow our ways, but he still saw something, did he not?" she murmured. "Did he see you, little stranger? And you saw him too?" She couldn't have demanded the name of the man, he was not Dotharl, and his answer could've been anything from hollow pretense to wishful guessing. 

No matter, the child was Dotharl, so would her name be. Gan knew in her soul that no one else would recognize anyone in this child's eyes.

It was months yet before she could be given her new name, but Gan knew it already. The baby detached from her breast with a little sigh, eyes closed and warm little body breathing slow and even. Gan adjusted her clothing and her grip, cradling the baby snugly to her. _Tuya_ , she thought to her. _Ray of light. Welcome._


End file.
